[pman68]

Anyone catch them tonight on the Factor? Really good TV! Moore owned O'Reilly, he had him stumbling.

My favorite quote from Moore, "A seven year-old makes mistakes." And "Would you send your kids to fight in Fallujah?" in which O'Reilly would not. No problem sending other people's kids though.

Moore - 1

O'Reilly - 0

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by pman68:
Anyone catch them tonight on the Factor? Really good TV! Moore owned O'Reilly, he had him stumbling.

I don't know what show you were watching. So instead of insisting that we all take your word for it, let's look at the transcript (part 1)

O’Reilly: The issues… alright good, now, one of the issues is you because you’ve been calling Bush a liar on weapons of mass destruction, the senate intelligence committee, Lord Butler’s investigation in Britain, and now the 911 Commission have all come out and said there was no lying on the part of President Bush._ Plus, Gladimir Putin has said his intelligence told Bush there were weapons of mass destruction._ Wanna apologize to the president now or later?

M: He didn’t tell the truth, he said there were weapons of mass destruction.

O: Yeah, but he didn’t lie, he was misinformed by - all of those investigations come to the same conclusion, that’s not a lie.

M: uh huh, so in other words if I told you right now that nothing was going on down here on the stage…

O: That would be a lie because we could see that wasn’t the truth

M: Well, I’d have to turn around to see it, and then I would realize, oh, Bill, I just told you something that wasn’t true… actually it’s president Bush that needs to apologize to the nation for telling an entire country that there were weapons of mass destruction, that they had evidence of this, and that there was some sort of connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11th, and he used that as a –

O: Ok, He never said that, but back to the other thing, if you, if Michael Moore are president –

M: I thought you said you saw the movie, I show all that in the movie

O: Which may happen if Hollywood, yeah, OK, fine –

M: But that was your question –

O: Just the issues._ You’ve got three separate investigations plus the president of Russia all saying… British intelligence, US intelligence, Russian intelligence, told the president there were weapons of mass destruction, you say, “he lied.”_ This is not a lie if you believe it to be true, now he may have made a mistake, which is obvious –

M: Well, that’s almost pathological – I mean, many criminals believe what they say is true, they could pass a lie detector test –

O: Alright, now you’re dancing around a question –

M: No I’m not, there’s no dancing

O: He didn’t lie

M: He said something that wasn’t true

O: Based upon bad information given to him by legitimate sources

M: Now you know that they went to the CIA, Cheney went to the CIA, they wanted that information, they wouldn’t listen to anybody

O: They wouldn’t go by Russian intelligence and Blair’s intelligence too

M: His own people told him, I mean he went to Richard Clarke the day after September 11th and said “What you got on Iraq?” and Richard Clarke’s going “Oh well this wasn’t Iraq that did this sir, this was Al Qaeda.”

O: You’re diverting the issue…did you read Woodward’s book?

M: No, I haven’t read his book.

O: Woodward’s a good reporter, right?_ Good guy, you know who he is right?

M: I know who he is.

O: Ok, he says in his book George Tenet looked the president in the eye, like how I am looking you in the eye right now and said “President, weapons of mass destruction are a quote, end quote, “slam dunk” if you’re the president, you ignore all that?

M: Yeah, I would say that the CIA had done a pretty poor job.

O: I agree._ The lieutenant was fired.

M: Yeah, but not before they took us to war based on his intelligence._ This is a man who ran the CIA, a CIA that was so poorly organized and run that it wouldn’t communicate with the FBI before September 11th and as a result in part we didn’t have a very good intelligence system set up before September 11th

O: Nobody disputes that

M: Ok, so he screws up September 11th._ Why would you then listen to him, he says this is a “slam dunk” and your going to go to war.

O: You’ve got MI-6 and Russian intelligence because they’re all saying the same thing that’s why._ You’re not going to apologize to Bush, you are going to continue to call him a liar.

M: Oh, he lied to the nation, Bill, I can’t think of a worse thing to do for a president to lie to a country to take them to war, I mean, I don’t know a worse –

O: It wasn’t a lie

M: He did not tell the truth, what do you call that?

O: I call that bad information, acting on bad information – not a lie

M: A seven year old can get away with that –

O: Alright, your turn to ask me a question—

M: ‘Mom and Dad it was just bad information’—

O: I’m not going to get you to admit it wasn’t a lie, go ahead

M: It was a lie.

[spacefreak]

And here's the "sacrifice your chid" part. Hardly the ownage that's claimed.

M: Would you sacrifice your child to remove one of the other 30 brutal dictators on this planet?

O: Depends what the circumstances were.

M: You would sacrifice your child?

O: I would sacrifice myself—I’m not talking for any children—to remove the Taliban. Would you?

M: Uh huh.

O: Would you? That’s my next question. Would you sacrifice yourself to remove the Taliban?

M: I would be willing to sacrifice my life to track down the people that killed 3,000 people on our soil.

O: Al Qeada was given refuge by the Taliban.

M: But we didn’t go after them—did we?

O: We removed the Taliban and killed three quarters of Al Qeada.

M: That’s why the Taliban are still killing our soldiers there.

O: OK, well look you cant kill everybody. You wouldn’t have invaded Afghanistan—you wouldn’t have invaded Afghanistan, would you?

M: No, I would have gone after the man that killed 3,000 people.

O: How?

M: As Richard Clarke says, our special forces were prohibited for two months from going to the area that we believed Osama was—

O: Why was that?

M: That’s my question.

O: Because Pakistan didn’t want its territory of sovereignty violated.

M: Not his was in Afghanistan, on the border, we didn’t go there. He got a two month head start.

O: Alright, you would not have removed the Taliban. You would not have removed that government?

M: No, unless it is a threat to us.

O: Any government? Hitler, in Germany, not a threat to us the beginning but over there executing people all day long—you would have let him go?

M: That’s not true. Hitler with Japan, attacked the United States.

O: Before—from 33-until 41 he wasn’t an imminent threat to the United States.

M: There’s a lot of things we should have done.

O: You wouldn’t have removed him.

M: I wouldn’t have even allowed him to come to power.

O: That was a preemption from Michael Moore—you would have invaded.

M: If we’d done our job, you want to get into to talking about what happened before WWI, woah, I’m trying to stop this war right now.

O: I know you are but—

M: Are you against that? Stopping this war?

O: No we cannot leave Iraq right now, we have to—

M: So you would sacrifice your child to secure Fallujah? I want to hear you say that.

O: I would sacrifice myself—

M: Your child—Its Bush sending the children there.

O: I would sacrifice myself.

M: You and I don’t go to war, because we’re too old—

O: Because if we back down, there will be more deaths and you know it.

M: Say ‘I Bill O’Reilly would sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah’

O: I’m not going to say what you say, you’re a, that’s ridiculous

M: You don’t believe that. Why should Bush sacrifice the children of people across America for this?

O: Look it’s a worldwide terrorism—I know that escapes you—

M: Wait a minute, terrorism? Iraq?

O: Yes. There are terrorist in Iraq.

M: Oh really? So Iraq now is responsible for the terrorism here?

O: Iraq aided terrorist—don’t you know anything about any of that?

M: So you’re saying Iraq is responsible for what?

O: I’m saying that Saddam Hussein aided all day long.

M: You’re not going to get me to defend Saddam Hussein.

O: I’m not? You’re his biggest defender in the media.

M: Now come on.

O: Look, if you were running he would still be sitting there.

M: How do you know that?

O: If you were running the country, he’d still be sitting there.

M: How do you know that?

O: You wouldn’t have removed him.

Wow...that sure is some real ownage.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by pman68:
And "Would you send your kids to fight in Fallujah?" in which O'Reilly would not. No problem sending other people's kids though.

Those "kids" are actually adults who have signed themselves up, on their own accord, for duty. No parent can sign up their children for military service.

[RAILhead]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
Those "kids" are actually adults who have signed themselves up, on their own accord, for duty. No parent can sign up their children for military service.

Maury

[MacGorilla]

Interesting debate. It just goes to show what a pair of good orators both are. I give the very slight edge to Moore in this debate. It was a good one.

[Spliffdaddy]

Moore got owned.

[MindFad]

dp

[MindFad]

O'Reilly is hereby fined with non sequitur and bizarre absolute pics. What an irrelevant hack.

This thread is going to be a fun Who-Owned-Who™ bickering match.

The Ogre Judges in FL call it so:

Moore: 1

O'Reilly: 0

[greenamp]

Clasic MM right there folks: mixing a lie with a truth and selling it as a truth.

His whole argument was moot for the following reasons:

1) Military personel ARE NOT CHILDREN, they are emplyees of a war machine.

2) The question, "would you sacrifice your child..." is ridiculous. Most people would not sacrifice their child for anything or anyone.

MM is the king of the strawman fallacy. I may email Faux news and loan them the idea of labeling MM "the strawman."


(for those of you who are unfamilar with the term:

Description of Straw Man

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.
Examples of Straw Man

1. Prof. Jones: "The university just cut our yearly budget by
$10,000."
Prof. Smith: "What are we going to do?"
Prof. Brown: "I think we should eliminate one of the teaching assistant positions. That would take care of it."
Prof. Jones: "We could reduce our scheduled raises instead."
Prof. Brown: " I can't understand why you want to bleed us dry like that, Jones."

2. "Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that."

3. Bill and Jill are arguing about cleaning out their closets:
Jill: "We should clean out the closets. They are getting a bit messy."
Bill: "Why, we just went through those closets last year. Do we have to clean them out everyday?"
Jill: "I never said anything about cleaning them out every day. You just want too keep all your junk forever, which is just ridiculous." )

[Invictus]

O'Reilly is stupid liar and a consistantly consistant booby prize winner or Peabody award or something.

[lasvegasgamer]

With Moore's tendancy to get over excited here and Bill often bullying, it was a suprisingly civl if not brief debate. And since I really dislike Bill O'Reilly, I thought I'd watch some of his spin while he was claiming to be in the "no spin zone".

I must say that while I still caught more lies then I should ever see in an hour of television news, it was the best I'd ever seen O'Reilly or Faux news, so much so that I only make a silly name reference to the channel news and not the man (no more O'Lielly claims from LVG for a while), maybe all us good Dems at the conference have rubbed off, or maybe he fears that if he spoke like he normally does, he'd get jumped right out he walked out of the Fox News Box.

My favorite spin from the man who hosts the "no spin zone"
"We'll come back to a speech from Ted Kennedy if he ever manages to show up"
when Teddy is obviously giving a speech right behind him. Oh well

I still think Moore won it, but I'll go by my opinion question by question

Question One: Intelligence / Bush Lied.
Analysis of Question: I love how O'Reilly loves to say that Putin said it too, just to make it seem like we had a few more allies in this (we have the Congo!)
Winner: I guess that if anyone, you give this to O'Reilly, because the charge that the president "lied" can't be entirely backed up, because of course we can never go in his head and figure it out and as long as he can point to the CIA saying things.
My opinion: It's a close one, and reading the transcript I almost declared it a tie, but I remember during the debate feeling that O'Reilly at least had the feeling of the debate here. I still think Moore should have gone into more of the groupthink that the 9/11 commision revealed that is basically the Bush administration forcing the CIA and I'd say Blair too, to support a certain point of view. It's very tie like, he didn't technically lie, but he didn't tell the truth, so depends on what you believe.

Question 2: Moore asks what you tell the parents of dead soldiers.
Analysis of question: I guess it feels here at the beginning that Moore is playing for emotion compared to O'Reilly goes into the facts, its when he expands the question to be more of the results of the last one, I think the debate came down to, if the president didn't tell the truth, what our are soldiers dying for and is that what they were told they were dying for?
Winner: I think Moore wins it. There was no *imminent threat* to America even *if* Saddam was a bad guy, sure, we want him out, but as Moore even says later in the interview, we can do that other ways, and we are losing our soldiers for a "mistake" or a "lie", whatever you call it.

I'll come back to the tell the parents thing in a second.

Question 3: Sacrifice life to get rid of Taliban.
Analysis: I think that Moore makes his point here, that we didn't get Osama and well, the Taliban got away, probably his answers made centrists mad at him, but the history of the Taliban is one where we've supported them a lot. The point is, we all want to get who is responsible for 9/11 and kill em, but aren't so sure we'd sacrifice our kids for that pursuit.
and then O'Reilly goes Godwin on us all and I am just going to ignore the rest of that questions, its really pointless and I'm not sure why O'Reilly brought it up, I say tie here, we both want the same thing but differ on how to achieve it, and Moore admits he would give his life to get rid of the terrorists who did 9/11, so yea, he answered, just difference of opinion on how to do that. Tie here.

Question 4: Would O'Reilly sacrifice his child to secure Fallujah?
Analysis: Since the talk of leaving Iraq has started, he plays a bit more on Bill's last question. O'Reilly wont say it. It makes O'Reilly look weak, so I give Moore the win on this question, because while we can say its all well and good that we've got Saddam, we're still losing soldiers over there, and thats a problem, and it seems like we've got no plan for getting out or winning a real peace, that is Mike's point and I think he makes it beautifully, hence the win on this question...
and Bill lets him have it anyway,
"O'REILLY: Because if we back down, there will be more deaths and you know it."
exactly, but if we don't, we're losing more of our soldiers every day.

and I don't consider it a question when Bill accuses Mike of being a saddam supporter, which was a bit out of line, but hey, they shook hands and that's cool.

So if we count up the questions as I see it, which is just my humble opinion, I give the debate to Moore by a 2-1 win on the questions, determined by effictiveness of the question asked, response given and debate therein and strength of arguement.

Mooreover though (heh, I'm a funny one) is that if even me being a liberal who still thinks Bill lost, I do respect him more for having a fair, unedited debate and keeping it relatively sane and civil. Maybe it's just calmity for the DNC, but maybe if this Bill can stop being so negative I will stop calling him O'Lielly.

Okay, no, he needs to stop lying first. But I do respect him a bit moore (okay, I'll stop); I just hope it Kerrysover (okay, damn, now I'm just funny) to when he gets back in the FNC studios.

Basically, the debate revealed the clash of the two parties, the centrist opinion,the opinion polls we've all been seeing etc, which is that:
Yes it was good we went in to Iraq and got Saddam out but we're losing soldiers every day, and have no plan for the peace; meanwhile even though we got Saddam out, we went to war to find WMDs, thats what Bush told the congress, the American people and our shoulders, and the fact there are no WMDs is troubling

Now lets go to the mini debate here in the forums, and I see just again how the right accuses Moore of being such a liar with the facts in his movies and an editor, blah blah blah, and just like always, they very rarely matter. Half the time they are pointing out something that is actually right or an opinion of Mike anyway, or the other half they are pointing out something that doesn't change his arguement at all. The latter is happening on this forum, you people are making a big deal he said "kids", yes they are 18 and yes, they signed up for service, so technically they are not kids. But they are the younger generation of Americans, who volunteer to do duty to defend their nation when it is in dire need, and they are fighting a war based on at the very best right-wing definition, a mistake. This is what are we sending our nation's soldiers into war for, and trying telling a 50 year old parent that their son has been killed for a mistake, because of some bad intelligence, and Bush's administration group-think to get us to war isn't going to make them feel any better over their loss.

That was Mike's point.

But all in all, very good for the two of them, a handshake.

[Troll]

Who cares what Putin said? Countries don't go to war on the basis of what other countries' intelligence services say. Especially when the country on the other side is Russia! O'Reilly mentions Putin over and over again and even invokes Putin as a reason for Bush invading! Does O'Reilly expect us to forget the interpretation that the Russians gave to the very intelligence being invoked? Putin didn't think that Saddam was an immediate threat to peace. Putin favoured the inspection process over an invasion. Putin even threatened to use Russia's veto to block an invasion of Iraq. Vlad is sitting in his office looking at the very dossier Bush is looking at, he's saying, "Let's look for these WMD." Bush is saying, "This intelligence is good enough evidence for us to justify invading Iraq." Am I the only one that finds that weird with a silent "f"? Russia shared intelligence AND AN INTERPRETATION of that intelligence with Bush. Bush ignored the interpretation and the tint that put on its accuracy.

A lot of people are standing with pieces of a puzzle in their hands and still looking blankly at the table! Here are the pieces people. Fact - the neocons wanted to invade Iraq even before 9/11 happened. Fact - the neocons pressured the intelligence services into linking Iraq and 9/11. Fact - the necons decided to form their own intelligence group (called the cabal) separate from the FBI or CIA. Fact - the CIA was not happy with part of the presentation by Powell to the UN. These pieces only fit together one way. The neocons wanted to invade Iraq. They weren't getting the information they needed to justify an invasion from their intelligence services. They therefore formed their own service, imported forged information and reinterpreted real information. They manufactured the justification they needed by selecting information that supported their cause and ignoring information that didn't help.

Moore calls that lying. If you say something that isn't true then you are a liar irrespective of your bona fides according to Moore. I think the definition of liar backs that up. A liar is someone who tells lies. Lies are deliberate falsehoods. A liar does not have to be the originator of the deliberate falsehood. Passing on a deliberate falsehood made by someone else makes you a liar irrespective of whether you act deliberately or not. There's a libel case every day that confirms this principle.

But is that really the issue here? I don't think it is. The issue here is this Administration's incompetence. Bush made a colossal f*ckup. Nearly a thousand US soldiers and more than 10,000 innocent Iraqis lost their lives because of this Administration's inability to interpret information accurately. Ignore their animus here; ignore the question of lies. They went to war on the basis of information collected from people who said the information didn't justify war, they went to war on the basis of information they'd got from an ex-con and a bunch of expatriates eager to take control of Iraq, they got information from forged copies of a student's thesis. Even if Bush wasn't malicious he was grossly, grossly negligent in his selection of information and in his decision-making. In my business, gross negligence lands you in jail. Negligence gets you fired. This is the principle in medicine too. If a patient dies because of a surgeon's negligence, it doesn't help for the surgeon to say that he wasn't purposefully trying to kill his patient. Negligent surgeons get fired, some go to jail. How anyone can think that, after the debacle that Iraq is, let alone everything else Bush has done, he is nevertheless fit to be the President of the most powerful nation on earth, is just beyone me. There are enough competent people in US politics for you to have a President that doesn't make as many mistakes, irrespective of whether they are honest or dishonest mistakes.

[pman68]

President Bush should apologize for sending troops in harm's way under false pretenses.

Remember "Mushroom cloud?" That didn't come from MI6 or Putin.

[macvillage.net]

Just remember OReilly owns 'final edit' on his show. They are edited for time.

So it's really hard to say what happened. Sometimes they air the whole thing, sometimes it's a much longer debate and they show the highlights.




To really say the results, you need to see unedited video.

[typoon]

This is quite interesting. Though I would LOVE to see a debate between Moore and Michael Savage. That would be an interesting one.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by macvillage.net:
Just remember OReilly owns 'final edit' on his show. They are edited for time.

So it's really hard to say what happened. Sometimes they air the whole thing, sometimes it's a much longer debate and they show the highlights.

To really say the results, you need to see unedited video.

If you actually watched the show, you would have seen O'Reilly's announcement that he was airing the entire debate unedited.

[davesimondotcom]

Funny how one's opinion shapes the "who owned who" debate on here. To me, it was one blowhard meeting a guy full of hot air and nothing substantive came from it except knowing that Michael Moore considers my sister in law and 51 year old friend who are both over in Iraq to be children.

The simple fact is, EVERYONE is someone's child - but the people who signed up for the military signed up voluntarily. Most are very proud of it. And for Moore to assume they are mindless children just proves he doesn't know what he's talking about.

His mantra is "Bush lied." He'll say it until he's blue in the face. But O'Reilly's explanation of his own points leaves much to be desired as well.

Didn't see it, just read it, but it sounds like the screaming matches I would expect from the butting of these two.

[davesimondotcom]

Troll -

Putin matters in the whole thing because he is just another independent source that said proves the facts that Bush had to go by.

Also, countries have always relied on other countries intelligence gathering. WWII wouldn't have been won if it weren't for such cooperation.

O'Reilly's point was that the Russians, Brits and CIA were all telling the President the same thing. Would Moore attack a reporter as lying if 3 normally reliable sources told that reporter something, he reported it, and soon after it was found that those sources were mistaken?

Where O'Reilly loses a chance is where he doesn't pick up on Moore's single tracked mind - WMDs weren't the only stated reason to invade Iraq. Moore still seems to think it is. And he wants it both ways - "I'm not on Saddam's side" - but "I didn't want to attack him."

[Troll]

Originally posted by davesimondotcom:
Would Moore attack a reporter as lying if 3 normally reliable sources told that reporter something, he reported it, and soon after it was found that those sources were mistaken?

If a reporter says, "Russian president Vladimir Putin said today that Dick Cheney is a child molester," and Putin did say that then he is not lying. If he says, "Dick Cheney is a child molester," then that is a lie (probably) and you'll see the reporter in court quick as a flash.

The Bush Administration didn’t say, "Russian intelligence says that Iraq has WMD, British intelligence has plagiarised student essays saying that Iraq has WMD, Italian intelligence has forged documents from Niger saying he is trying to buy noocoolar material." They said, “We know Saddam has WMD.” That makes Bush a liar IMHO. But as I said, Bush’s lies are irrelevant.

You didn't address the main point regarding the Russian information which is that Putin said TWO things: 1) That they believed Saddam had WMD and 2) That they believed inspections were the best course of action. Bush ignored the second part. And that second part reflects on Putin's confidence in the information. If the Russians were so sure of themselves, why did they think they didn’t have reasons to invade, that they still needed to look for the WMD? “He has them but we think we should keep looking for them,” kind of makes ME go hmm. How ‘bout you? Not once did Bush present information which turned out to be incorrect but which suggested that going to war was a bad option but he consistently presented unreliable information that suggested the opposite. Coincidence? This leads into the next point which is the central issue for me.

Bush's job is to select and process information and make good decisions on the basis of that information. Bush was grossly negligent if not contemptuous. He did a bad job. There are only two possibilities here:

1) He did take all of the information that was available into account but it was bad information and he failed to identify it as such. OR
2) He only took the information into account that suited the outcome he wanted.

Those are the two options you have. Bush was not making his decision on whether to invade Iraq in a friendly context. It’s not like back in 2002 everyone is encouraging him to invade Iraq. Quite the opposite. Bush is making this decision in the context of massive protests in anticipation of an invasion – the biggest the world has ever seen. Bush has leaders calling him day and night asking him not to invade. He has allies threatening to use their veto against him at the UN, he has UN officials exposing the information he relies on as unreliable - forgeries in some case, he has people accusing his sources like Ahmed Chalabi of being criminal liars. He must realise that if he goes against all of these people and invades Iraq anyway, he will be going out on a limb. He must realise that he needs to make damn sure that limb can bear his weight. We should expect the decision that came out of this to be the absolute best that Bush is capable of. This is a decision that would have received all of Bush’s intellectual capacity.

And he got it wrong. So, let’s go back to option 1 and 2 above. The Republican argument right now is basically that Bush got it wrong but so what, it turned out okay in the end. Iraq is free after all. Even if you believe that 1,000 dead US troops and 10,000 dead, innocent Iraqis and a country in complete turmoil is a "good result", next time it might be worse. Next time Bush “shows character”, goes against everyone else on the planet and gets it wrong, the result may be disastrous. He’s developing two new nuclear weapons which he wants to use in the quest for a "New American Century". If the American people say that this mistake doesn’t matter, will he not be encouraged to make more? Send troops off to other countries in error, kill more innocent people in error? I’m back to the doctor analogy. This surgeon has acted negligently at best. Why on earth would you put him in a position where he can cause more death? This isn’t a three strikes and you’re out situation. This is the top job on the planet.

Originally posted by davesimondotcom:
Where O'Reilly loses a chance is where he doesn't pick up on Moore's single tracked mind - WMDs weren't the only stated reason to invade Iraq. Moore still seems to think it is. And he wants it both ways - "I'm not on Saddam's side" - but "I didn't want to attack him."

I don’t see why it’s relevant what reasons Bush gave for invading Iraq. Unless you’re still trying to argue about whether Bush lied. If you are, it seems bizarre to say that he didn’t lie about WMD because he said there were other reasons to invade! The issue here is not what Bush SAID, it’s why the people that gave Bush the power to invade Iraq allowed him to do it. Because if those people think that he pulled the wool over their eyes, he’s not likely to be reelected.

WMD were THE reason why Congress and most Americans supported invading Iraq. WMD are obviously not the only reason why Bush invaded but those are two separate things. If Bush had told Americans that he wanted to send most of his Army off to Iraq to free the Iraqi people from the spectre of Saddam Hussein, we all know what they would have said! "Stuff off," is what they would have said. "We need to be catching terrorists," is what they would have said, "not freeing oppressed people." And if Bush had told the truth about why he wanted to invade Iraq, he would have received the same response. Because if your average American had been to www.projectforanewamericancentury.org and knew what the Neocons were about - if they knew that invading Iraq was part of the implementation of a neocon policy to consolidate US domination of the globe through military conquest, I doubt they would have supported the war. Most Americans are pretty isolationist. They aren't as interested in consolidating an empire as the neocons are.

It doesn’t matter whether or not Bush lied. It matters that he made a bad decision. A bad decision that has cost money, lives, alliances, respect and made the world a more dangerous place for Americans. The buck has to stop.

[doctorkeyser]

Originally posted by Troll:
The Bush Administration didn’t say, "Russian intelligence says that Iraq has WMD, British intelligence has plagiarised student essays saying that Iraq has WMD, Italian intelligence has forged documents from Niger saying he is trying to buy noocoolar material."

LMAO

"noocoolar"

Sad, but very, very true.

[Spliffdaddy]

QUOTE: "If a reporter says, "Russian president Vladimir Putin said today that Dick Cheney is a child molester," and Putin did say that then he is not lying. If he says, "Dick Cheney is a child molester," then that is a lie (probably) and you'll see the reporter in court quick as a flash."

Um, let's make the scenario a bit more realistic....

Dick Cheney was convicted by the UN of molesting children a decade ago. He was on parole.

[doctorkeyser]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
QUOTE: "If a reporter says, "Russian president Vladimir Putin said today that Dick Cheney is a child molester," and Putin did say that then he is not lying. If he says, "Dick Cheney is a child molester," then that is a lie (probably) and you'll see the reporter in court quick as a flash."

Um, let's make the scenario a bit more realistic....

Dick Cheney was convicted by the UN of molesting children a decade ago. He was on parole.

Now feel free to take issue with the whole rest of his post. Good points, all of them.

[Troll]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
QUOTE: "If a reporter says, "Russian president Vladimir Putin said today that Dick Cheney is a child molester," and Putin did say that then he is not lying. If he says, "Dick Cheney is a child molester," then that is a lie (probably) and you'll see the reporter in court quick as a flash."

Um, let's make the scenario a bit more realistic....

Dick Cheney was convicted by the UN of molesting children a decade ago. He was on parole.

Do you know the definition of "is"?

"Dick Cheney was a child molester," isn't a lie in your scenario. Neither is "Dick Cheney has been convicted of child molestation before and Putin says he is a child molester."

In your scenario, "Dick Cheney is a child molester", in the absence of proof, is still a lie irrespective of what he did in the past.

[vmpaul]

What entertaining TV. Two blowhards blathering at each other. It actually wasn't that bad though.

FWIW, I actually think that O'Reilly got the best of Moore...slightly. Moore didn't do a good job of proving his point that Bush lied. Or should I say lied intentionally to to start the war. Although they both seemed to agree that Bush made a mistake to rely on the Intelligence so completely.

Also, Moore's point about sending children to war is an exaggeration. It is a voluntary force. We're not sending children to battle.

I thought it was disingenuous for O'Reilly to editorialize after the interview. He should've just signed off to be fair. But then, there's nothing fair about O'Reilly in the first place. I don't usually watch him because I've always gotten the impression that he really doesn't care about the answers from his guests. He just uses them as a stepping off point to pontificate on his own (sort of like what we do here ).

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
If you actually watched the show, you would have seen O'Reilly's announcement that he was airing the entire debate unedited.

For some reason, I'm pretty sure it wasn't a whole 3hr+ debate on TV, even though that's what his taping typically are according to those on his crew.

There was a time not long ago where the WWF was said to be real, and not actors.

[PacHead]

Originally posted by macvillage.net:
For some reason, I'm pretty sure it wasn't a whole 3hr+ debate on TV, even though that's what his taping typically are according to those on his crew.

There was a time not long ago where the WWF was said to be real, and not actors.

This wasn't any 3 hour debate, and your accusations about the show being "edited" are false, wrong and incorrect.

It was a short sitdown between moore & o'reilly, and besides for the one commercial break, there were no edits.

Moore is a lying idiot, and it was funny to see how clueless he was when O'Reilly asked about WW2. Nobody signed up their children for any war, what a lying asshat, and strawman moron.

[typoon]

Originally posted by PacHead:
This wasn't any 3 hour debate, and your accusations about the show being "edited" are false, wrong and incorrect.

It was a short sitdown between moore & o'reilly, and besides for the one commercial break, there were no edits.

Moore is a lying idiot, and it was funny to see how clueless he was when O'Reilly asked about WW2. Nobody signed up their children for any war, what a lying asshat, and strawman moron.

That's why for most of Moore's movie I laughed through most of it. It was just too funny for words.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by Troll:
Bush's job is to select and process information and make good decisions on the basis of that information. Bush was grossly negligent if not contemptuous. He did a bad job. There are only two possibilities here:

1) He did take all of the information that was available into account but it was bad information and he failed to identify it as such. OR
2) He only took the information into account that suited the outcome he wanted.

It's number 1. And he's not the first President to process that information in the same way. Clinton did too.

I don't see how you can expect him to somehow magically see "truth" through bad information. If you have been told your whole life that the shape of this letter - O - is a square, are you lying when you tell someone that it is a square? No, you are relying on sources that you should and have been told you can trust who are mistaken.

But this entire debate is a farce anyway. Moore and the other "Bush lied" crowd are simply trying to distract the world from the fact that what Bush did helped the people of Iraq get out from under the foot of a dictator.

[typoon]

Originally posted by davesimondotcom:
It's number 1. And he's not the first President to process that information in the same way. Clinton did too.

I don't see how you can expect him to somehow magically see "truth" through bad information. If you have been told your whole life that the shape of this letter - O - is a square, are you lying when you tell someone that it is a square? No, you are relying on sources that you should and have been told you can trust who are mistaken.

But this entire debate is a farce anyway. Moore and the other "Bush lied" crowd are simply trying to distract the world from the fact that what Bush did helped the people of Iraq get out from under the foot of a dictator.

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Algore had been the president (shudders) and had gotten the same Intel that Bush did. Would he have done the same thing? If so and then admitted a mistake would it be getting the same type of play that it is getting now because it is Bush?

[doctorkeyser]

Originally posted by typoon:
It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Algore had been the president (shudders) and had gotten the same Intel that Bush did. Would he have done the same thing? If so and then admitted a mistake would it be getting the same type of play that it is getting now because it is Bush?

Unlikely. If all else failed, the GOP would have concocted a plan to have Barbara Bush go down on Gore, take pictures, and expose the whole thing so they wouldn't have to worry about a second term.

[typoon]

Originally posted by doctorkeyser:
Unlikely. If all else failed, the GOP would have concocted a plan to have Barbara Bush go down on Gore, take pictures, and expose the whole thing so they wouldn't have to worry about a second term.

Thanks for the laugh. How is it unlikely? Would Algore's Intel have been better than what Bush got? I doubt it since the CIA chief was a left over from the Clinton Administration.

[stevesnj]

So why did the US wait 2 months to go into Afghanistan? Didn't Osama and his people claim responsibility a few days after 9/11?

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by typoon:
[B]It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Algore had been the president (shudders) and had gotten the same Intel that Bush did.

One doesn’t even have to wonder.

Clinton struck Iraq in 1998 in order to : “strike military and security targets in Iraq that contribute to Iraq's ability to produce, store, maintain and deliver weapons of mass destruction.”

Over 75 targets were hit, commanders admitted that they didn’t hit everything, just reduced his capacity to develop and deliver by a percentage, but now we’re told by the left that ALL of it simply ‘didn’t exist’.

That or Clinton and the whole rest of the world was lying and were just popping off air strikes against innocents.

Which is it? Why was Clinton never taken to the mat for striking non-existent weapons and lying about it?

[typoon]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:

That or Clinton and the whole rest of the world was lying and were just popping off air strikes against innocents.

Which is it? Why was Clinton never taken to the mat for striking non-existent weapons and lying about it?

Where were our allies on this? Where was the UN? Where were France and Germany?

CRASH, you know the answer to that question. Clinton himself even said that Saddam had WMD and that he was a threat.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by typoon:
CRASH, you know the answer to that question. Clinton himself even said that Saddam had WMD and that he was a threat.

Of course, we all know the answer to the question. He not only said it, my whole point is he actually attacked Iraq over it. (The big fallacy being floated now is that he didn’t- selective or lost memory it seems).

But it’s fun to apply lib-‘logic’ to the situation.

Let’s fact it: Clinton, France, Germany, the UN, every involved intel agency in the world- everybody was lying. “Let’s all pretend Iraq has WMDs, even attack 75 sites, even though we know the weapons don’t exist.”

Apparently all this so that they could set up the Governor of Texas who they knew would later become president, and they could pin the whole thing on him.

Wait, which prong was that again?

It’s perhaps the greatest conspiracy of all time!

[typoon]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
Of course, we all know the answer to the question. He not only said it, my whole point is he actually attacked Iraq over it. (The big fallacy being floated now is that he didn’t- selective or lost memory it seems).

That seemed to happen quite a bit to both Clintons.

[Troll]

Originally posted by davesimondotcom:
It's number 1. And he's not the first President to process that information in the same way. Clinton did too.

I don't see how you can expect him to somehow magically see "truth" through bad information. If you have been told your whole life that the shape of this letter - O - is a square, are you lying when you tell someone that it is a square? No, you are relying on sources that you should and have been told you can trust who are mistaken.

Two things. First, the quality of the analysis of information is proportional to the importance of the decision. When the decision is to send 1,000 US citizens and 10,000 innocent Iraqis to their deaths, the accuracy of your decision-making has to be a lot better than when it's about bombing a drug factory. Clinton never sacrificed 1,000 US lives so I guess we'll never know how sure he would have wanted to be before he decided to start killing people. The fact that he never did see a military solution to Iraq suggests he didn't think the evidence was convincing enough. Bush seems to have taken the decision very lightly, making all kinds of wrong assumptions, ignoring all kinds of people and all kinds of information in favour of very dodgy information which just happened to support a policy his people had in place before 9/11.

Second, your analogy with the letter "O" is disingenuous because everyone wasn't telling Bush it was a square. Everyone was telling Bush it was an O. Almost everyone. Nearly everyone was saying we shouldn't be going to war with the information we have. He was the one saying it's a square. He was in the tiny, tiny minority of people who thought there was enough to justify war.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by Troll:
Second, your analogy with the letter "O" is disingenuous because everyone wasn't telling Bush it was a square. Everyone was telling Bush it was an O. Almost everyone. Nearly everyone was saying we shouldn't be going to war with the information we have. He was the one saying it's a square. He was in the tiny, tiny minority of people who thought there was enough to justify war.

Now who is hearing only what they want to hear? Do you really think nearly everyone was telling the President that there were no WMDs in Iraq? Who is this "everyone?" Certainly not MI-6 or CIA. Certainly not the huge majority of Congress who gave him the power for such an action.

So who is "everyone?" The majority of left-leaning people on this board?

[Spliffdaddy]

No, the lefties never disputed the WMD thing until *after* 125,000 coalition troops kicked Iraqi ass - so the lefties lied, too.

Once it looked like the US was going to win, the lefties got upset.

[doctorkeyser]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
No, the lefties never disputed the WMD thing until *after* 125,000 coalition troops kicked Iraqi ass - so the lefties lied, too.

Once it looked like the US was going to win, the lefties got upset.

When did it start looking like we were going to "win?" Around the time our casualty rate started increasing markedly after the mission was "accomplished?"

[Spliffdaddy]

we won in the first 72 hours.

regime change, remember?

[typoon]

Originally posted by Troll:
Two things. First, the quality of the analysis of information is proportional to the importance of the decision. When the decision is to send 1,000 US citizens and 10,000 innocent Iraqis to their deaths, the accuracy of your decision-making has to be a lot better than when it's about bombing a drug factory. Clinton never sacrificed 1,000 US lives so I guess we'll never know how sure he would have wanted to be before he decided to start killing people. The fact that he never did see a military solution to Iraq suggests he didn't think the evidence was convincing enough. Bush seems to have taken the decision very lightly, making all kinds of wrong assumptions, ignoring all kinds of people and all kinds of information in favour of very dodgy information which just happened to support a policy his people had in place before 9/11.

Second, your analogy with the letter "O" is disingenuous because everyone wasn't telling Bush it was a square. Everyone was telling Bush it was an O. Almost everyone. Nearly everyone was saying we shouldn't be going to war with the information we have. He was the one saying it's a square. He was in the tiny, tiny minority of people who thought there was enough to justify war.

No, but Clinton hung those Army Rangers in Somalia out to dry. If he didn't see the evidence as convincing enough why even bomb? why waste all that money for nothing?

Clinton had 8 years to do something and did NOTHING. 1993 bombing of the WTC should have been the first sign. Then the Bombing at the Khobar towers, Then the Attack on the USS Cole. He had PLENTY of evidence and he supposedly KNEW who it was. Clinton even claimed there was a link between Saddam and terrorist as well as him having WMD. Should we wait for them to do soemthing else before we finally do something?

8 months to setup a plan to combat these terrorist as opposed to 8 years. Also you seem to forget his Dodgy intel came from the Clinton CIA.

[doctorkeyser]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
we won in the first 72 hours.

regime change, remember?

Right, now I remember. I think that was reason #3.

[Agasthya]

It is online at www.foxnews.com

Check the right hand side of the mainpage.

[LoganCharles]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
No, the lefties never disputed the WMD thing until *after* 125,000 coalition troops kicked Iraqi ass - so the lefties lied, too.

Once it looked like the US was going to win, the lefties got upset.

I remember reading I believe on Salon.com where the editor specifically stated that he hoped for high casualties just to be proven right. I wonder if he still feels the same

[Troll]

Originally posted by davesimondotcom:
Now who is hearing only what they want to hear? Do you really think nearly everyone was telling the President that there were no WMDs in Iraq? Who is this "everyone?" Certainly not MI-6 or CIA. Certainly not the huge majority of Congress who gave him the power for such an action.

So who is "everyone?" The majority of left-leaning people on this board?

Why are you so focussed on the lie accusation when I keep saying that it's irrelevant? It's not about whether Bush was told that there were WMD in Iraq. It's about the fact that everyone was telling him not to invade on the basis of the information he had. Everyone was saying that the information he had revealed looked dodgy, was unreliable and in some cases forged, that he should rather wait, collect more information through inspections and then let's see about invading.

Who was saying that? Millions of people that protested all over the world in the biggest protests the planet has ever seen, world leaders from all but a handful of countries on the planet that petitioned Bush, leaders of the some of the most powerful nations on earth who threatened to use the veto to block the invasion, spiritual leaders like the Pope, moral leaders like Nelson Mandela, the Secretary General of the UN, national security experts in the US, every inspector that had ever been to Iraq, MI6's top expert on Iraq. Bush's responsibility wasn't just to listen to what he was being fed by his cabal and by his intelligence services. The decision to invade was his alone. No one told him to interpret the information in that way.

[Spliffdaddy]

lol.

[Mr. Bob]

MM Owned O'Reilly?

Ok buddy, let me explain how this whole military thing works.

First off, I joined the military, my father did not sign me up. Next, the men and women in the fighting force are NOT children. They are adults who themselves agreed to a commitment. When I joined, under my own free will (Bush did not make me join), I completely understood that for any reason WHAT SO EVER, I may be sent to a hostile area, and have my face filled with lead. That is what I agreed to. If Bush sends me to Iraq (which may just happen real soon) and if I get killed, Bush did not sacrifice me, I sacrificed myself. I joined, and part of me joining means that I may get killed during my commitment, I understood this from the beginning.

The whole “would you sacrifice your child” argument MM is using is ignorant at best. The people who have died in Iraq sacrificed themselves, and that is an honor you should give them. They were not just thrown into a wood chipper, they gave themselves to a cause. Something that MM completely disregards. Also, MM is undermining what these brave people have done.

1) Even if no WMD was found, these people went to Iraq and did what was thought necessary at the time to keep our great nation secure.

2) They ousted a vicious murder that raped hundreds of women, and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. We did not invade a pacifist nation, we invaded a nation who’s government was tyrannical. Just as we invaded Germany to remove the nazis, and Japan to remove the Meiji empire, we invaded Iraq to remove Saddam.

3) They have given Iraq a chance to become a democratic nation, something that even after 12 years of containment would never have happened otherwise.

4) Now, after ousting Saddam’s régime Iraq needs to be stabilized in order to prevent it from becoming a failed state. Otherwise, America will be at even greater risk then before invading. Now, these men and women in Iraq are doing what needs to be done for America’s security, and also for Iraq’s.

What MM is doing is playing on the heartbreak of the nation by using the death of courageous solders as a political weapon. These people did not die because of Bush’s incompetence, but by doing something that is sadly necessary.

If you are against the war, that’s fine, if you hate Bush, that’s good too. But do not buy into the idea that the “would you sacrifice your son” argument is worth anything.

As far as I am concerned, MM showed that he has no clue what is going on in the Middle East. He did not know about the connections between Saddam’s Régime and Hamas. He did now know why we could not send special forces into Afghanistan, and gave an absolutely foolhardy answer to O’Reilly first question (the whole drunk driving thing was dumb).

Plain and simple, if you have negative views about Bush, or the war, I would hope you have better reasons then MM, because all of his are ignorant. And please, do not fall into the idea that military men and woman do not understand their duties when they willfully sign the contract, and place their lives on hold. As far as I am concerned, MM is making a mockery of what the brave men and woman have died for in Iraq, by placing them into the category as people who were forced into service, not as people who choose to live a life of selfless service. And as people who he says have accomplished nothing, when that is grossly untrue.

These people gave more then anyone should ever have to give, respect that. Those 900 people are heros, and served a noble cause, something that MM and other people fail to relize. And although MM says he cares for the troops, his comments show that he is a very ignorant person, or that he is just playing on the souls of Americans. Both of which have no excuse.

[zjazzyfestive]

Two things Kerry said that I thought were funny:

Help is on the way. < It's been there and doing the job for over a year.
Reporting for Duty. < Why? So you can get 3 more purple hearts with a hang nail, scratch, and self-inflicted paper cut?

Later Loser.